April 30, 2010

"Learn how to design and composite a combat Heads-Up-Display (HUD) with an automated tracking system [Boujou] using real ground targets in After Effects. Take a pre-tracked background plate and feed various target data into the on screen graphics, based on distance to camera expressions. Design and build various animated and static elements including random number generation and meter movement..."

"Ben suggests that now that people are creating new CS5 projects with built-in subtract and divide blending modes, there may be a call to 'retrofit' these options to earlier versions. [He also explains] how compositing applications create a composite" so you can control premultiplication and predivison manually if needed.

Lester Banks tweeted about Yanobox Nodes, a new FxPlug filter (Mac-only) that works in Final Cut Pro, Motion, and After Effects. It "allows you to visually animate Objects & Relationships through Nodes and Lines" and seems to include several interesting features and presets (see the online manual).

"The text animation system in After Effects is complex. It's very, very powerful... but it's complex. Perhaps the most complex and difficult part of the whole system is how selectors work. And within that subset, the most esoteric and powerful feature is expression selectors. Few people use them, because they're hard to figure out; but those who do use them have a great tool in their hands. ... That's where Aaron Cobb came along."

'In this episode, designer Harry Frank shows you how to create a cool motion graphics "shooters" effect with Trapcode Particular. After that, he also goes into Maxon Cinema 4D and Adobe Illustrator to create a full logo build with this effect.'

"With CS4, Adobe added XML import capabilities in Premiere Pro. In CS5 they have now also added XML export, making basic round tripping possible between Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro [and Avid]. In this tutorial I give an overview of how to exchange projects between Adobe Premiere Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro. ... But the supported options for motion graphics are very limited."Read more...

Exact information on supported effects, transitions, composite modes, etc. for FCP exchange can be found in Premiere Pro Help. Also, feature overviews on open workflows with Final Cut and Avid software are on the main product page (Avid exchange is with AAF sequences + OMF export). Here's Joost:

Andrew Kramer and Video Copilot are back with a new After Effects tutorial video tutorial, 105. 3D Ledge, which integrates 3D with live action footage using 2D tracking:"...we will be keying, tracking, roto-scoping, exporting, integrating, color correcting and a lot more. This 47-minute tutorial starts out in After Effects and covers generating the 3D building in 3D Max & Cinema 4D. No match-moving or 3D tracking required everything is done with the 2D tracker in AE. I’ve even included the 3D building for everyone to use.

You can even skip the 3D programs and build a sweet building in After Effects alone with the 3D City Tutorial."

"Below is a preview of lens correction technology that will be included in Lightroom 3 and the Camera Raw 6 plug-in that's part of Photoshop CS5. This is an exciting development for our non-destructive editing technology and is designed to address lens correction via two methods: Lens Profiles and Manual Correction. The easiest application of lens correction is to apply the lens profile technology that encompasses geometric distortion(barrel and pincushion distortion), chromatic aberration and lens vignetting characteristics."

Read more... at the Lightroom blog. By the way, Photoshop CS5 will need to be updated after install for Camera Raw 6.1.

Check out also previous posts on light graffiti from TheCoolist. Click on the tag graffiti for AEP posts on graffiti and light graphics. A few After Effects tutorials were noted in Light graffiti in AE.

April 24, 2010

Max After has a new After Effects tutorial video called Motion Graphic Design which shares some mograph basics as well as how to make some nice little streamer strings with Trapcode Particular, similar to those seen in Reserve17's openings.

Note: Don't forget that presets, tutorials, and templates are just a starting point! See "Your weakness is your strength" for community discussion on this point.

Presets and project templates for After Effects are growing rapidly in number and quality. Of course most tutorial authors offer free projects and presets. Motion Graphics Exchange leads the pack offering free collection and referrals with their attractive library, and hopefully we'll see another initiative from them soon. Additional background and free resources were listed earlier in AE presets & projects round-up.

There are at least 16 sites already selling templates and presets, just waiting for a Topher-style roundup [update: a week later Topher Welsh added 20 After Effects Template Websites].

Adam Wilt is hard to ignore, so here's his NAB 2010: Final Thoughts at PVC. He saw three major trends, the 3Ds: video-capable DSLRs everywhere; 3D production kit, ditto; the Democratization of digital cine cams.

"In a way, Content Aware Healing brush is Content Aware Fill’s little brother. Not the brainier, scrawny little brother, just smaller. If Content Aware Fill is the Army, taking out unwanted big areas in a single (or double, or triple) bound, the Content Aware Healing Brush (CAHB) is Special Forces, conducting specialized operations in tight places where Content Aware Fill (CAF) might not work so well.

Even in more concentrated areas that CAF works in just fine, CAHB is just easier simply because instead of repeatedly selecting and bringing up the fill dialog is replaced by marking the area you wish to heal – cutting down the amount of steps you repeat to complete a process saves you what? It saves you time. Again with the time! But, remember, time savings is my #1 reason for loving Photoshop CS5! Sometimes, on the other hand, CAHB might take a couple more steps, but the result is worth it.

Update: Never say never... something new shows up from NAB... at the very end of an interview with David Basalto for Post, AE product manager Michael Coleman doesn't promise nodes but admits to creative ideas in the hopper that might satisfy the desire for nodes.

Russell Brown has some 8 new Photoshop CS5 tutorials, with PS Extended tutorials coming soon. These come via John Nack but you may as well go the source, The Russell Brown Show. Here's a sample on Content Aware Fill now on Adobe TV:

NAB 2010 news, a bit repetitive for CS5 at this point, continues with lovely coverage from Fxguide in fxguidetv #081 (Apr 20) with interviews on After Effects and Premiere CS5 with Michael Coleman and Karl Soule, with Ted Shilowitz on Epic from RED, and with Angus MacKay on reading ProRes and RED files directly and more in Avid Media Composer version 5.

Meanwhile over on MacVideo.tv there's NAB video of Jason Levine going pure coco on Production Premium CS5 at the FCP SuperMeet, and a concise yet thoroughDennis Radeke from the Adobe booth.

Mark Christiansen gives us a brief look at what he calls a "breakthrough addition to the world’s most popular compositing application" in The Foundry unveils 3D Camera Tracker for After Effects at PVC. Due late summer or early fall, the pricing is competitive -- and you can register for beta participation!

'When working with high particle counts in Trapcode Form, the only thing that will speed things up is a lower number of particles. In this video, Harry Frank shows you how Creating an Expression Checkbox as an "on-off" switch for this is a efficient way to manage render times when working with Form.'

In a new podcast, Adobe's Terry White demos Edge Detection and Decontaminate Colors in Refine Edge in Photoshop CS5. These features, also in Refine Mask, are akin to ones in the new Refine Matte in After Effects CS5 (see the Mark Christiansen explanation free at Lynda.com).

Motionworks' tour of built-in AE filters continues with the old Bezier Warp filter, which "shapes an image using a closed Bezier curve along the boundary of a layer. The curve consists of four segments. Each segment has three points (a vertex and two tangents)."

In Straight Alpha Channels, Richard Harrington explains the difference between straight & premultiplied alpha channels, as well as when and how to use straight alpha channels in an episode of Photoshop for Video.

In Straight Vs. Premultiplied, Aharon Rabinowitz for Creative Cow helps you understand the differences between Straight and Premultiplied video when working with After Effects alone, as well as between AE and other programs.

Alpha channels
are grayscale channels in addition to the color channels of a file.
They define transparency and often delineate objects or selections as a
matte or stencil. Alpha channels can come pre-matted ("shaped") or as
straight, that is, anti-aliased when composited.

You can also turn off render chimes by setting "Play sound when render finishes" to "0" in the Adobe After Effects 10.0 Prefs file (locations may have changed). The classic render chime (Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy) sound may have gone the way of Wireframe Previews.

Jarle Leirpoll, although known for misdirection, makes an interesting case for using Premiere CS5 as an After Effects replacement, if you have the CUDA card to engage the hardware acceleration of the Mercury engine.

It's an angle not imagined here, but you would have at least AE 2.0 capabilities that would be handy under a deadline:

"Well, it's only Premiere Pro that will really gain anything from using a Mercury approved card. But the performance boost is really insane! (Sometimes 75 times faster, and that means it will be real time). So a lot of the basic compositing you do in AE can now be done in real time in Premiere Pro.

So I will definitely use Premiere Pro much more for compositing and motion graphics, and just throw it over to AE when I have to.With all the basic stuff in there, like Transforms, Blending modes, CC, Track Mattes, Green Screen (Ultra keyer is amazing) and the most used effects, Premiere Pro is quite capable of doing at least 75 % of the effects stuff I need. In real time. On several HD layers.

And as an added bonus, export to web formats, DVD, Blu-ray etc. will be lightning fast compared to AE. If you don't need all this wonderful real-time, and faster exports, you don't need to bother using Premiere Pro, and you can save your money, not buying the Quadro FX 4800."

"Transparency is an important element to reflect in one’s relationships and if we can help you in that area it’d be our pleasure! In this tutorial you’ll find out how to create a realistic glass reflection on a 3D object, created within After Effects. We’ll then simulate a normal pass and have it reflect the environment with the “normality” free plug-in."

Other discussions of 3D in CS5 and in AE were noted previously in 3D, Cineform, and CS5. And here's some fun via Tim Sassoon from a recent thread on the AE-List on 3D and its hype, 2D Theatre by Hungry Beast -- and something more like the future via the Twittersphere:

Update: Andrew Murchie has launched a four-part series of After Effects tutorials showing how to convert 2D footage to 3D. Each one focuses on a different technique with an increasing level of complexity. 2d to 3d After Effects tutorial, the first tutorial, covers a simple channel offset technique that will get you converting 2d to 3d.

Alexis Van Hurkman had more observations in Notes From NAB and Notes From NAB, Part Deux, and "was told that of the two NVidia cards installed, the one doing the heavy lifting was the GTX 285 (the other being the base GT 120 card that’s handling the UI). This is definitely an affordable option, though it’ll be a change for all the Apple Color users (myself included) who’ve set up their systems based on the ATI graphics cards that have long been recommended."

The new software is $995, which is a foot in the door (or training version) on the way to many thousands for proper hardware. Oliver Peters and others on the FCP-List make several points about features and workflow:

"It is ideally suited for projects where the show is LOCKED. That's the standard workflow for prime time dramas and most feature films. That's increasingly harder to rely on these days as producers want to make changes right up to air. Color, too, is extremely weak in a workflow that requires interactivity (more than one roundtrip) between the NLE and the grading app. From this POV only integrated grading within the NLE truly works. That would include MC, FCP, Symphony, DS, Smoke and Quantel iQ/eQ/Pablo to varying degrees."

"[and]... Two different workflows. You have to roundtrip with Color because it can't output to tape. daVinci can capture and output to tape via a Decklink card. Which has the added advantage of allowing you to easily color correct an existing master. daVinci also allows you to 'notch' a tape which means you can find the edit points on a finished master either via an EDL or by scene detection. So here is a workflow. You have finished your show in FCP/MC/Premiere? Vegas, whatever. Export a QT Reference movie on your shared storage. create an EDL. Open the movie in Resolve and use the EDL to notch it. Color correct with a superior tool for the job. Now export to tape or DPX files."

Patrick Inhofer added: "My understanding is that the Resolve Reconform tools are truly outstanding. It enables a colorist to start working before show lock, reimport the EDL and it'll manage all the corrections properly."Update: on the AE-List, Jack Tunnicliffe said he was "impressed by the performance he was getting and said it wouldn't bog down until he started loading up secondaries, which are unlimited, by the way. Nice to see the user shapes for B splines now instead of just ovals and squares, as well as a true 3D tracker, which was extremely accurate and fast." Also, David Basulto interviewed Grant Petty for Post magazine:

Update 2: there were other interesting threads at Creative Cow and REDuser (fact and opinion may mix too freely).